A polymerizable liquid crystal composition is useful as a constituent member of an anisotropic optical body and the anisotropic optical body is applied to various liquid crystal displays as a retardation film and an antireflective film, for example. The anisotropic optical body having a liquid crystal material as a constituent element is obtained by applying the polymerizable liquid crystal composition to a substrate, heating or irradiating the substrate with an active energy ray in an oriented state to harden the polymerizable liquid crystal composition, but it is necessary to semi-permanently immobilize a structure of a state in which liquid crystal molecules in a liquid crystal state are evenly oriented, in order to obtain stable and even optical characteristics.
Polymerizable liquid crystal compositions containing surfactants have been proposed thus far, in order to improve coating properties on the substrate (see PTLs 1 and 2). The coating properties on the substrate have been improved and occurrence of unevenness in a film thickness can be reduced by the methods disclosed in PTLs described above, but orientation properties of liquid crystals have been affected.